Two Different Worlds
by delphigirl
Summary: Makino Tsukushi is a hardworking college student trying to pay her own way through Eitoku University. Doumiyouji Tsukasa is a rich, handsome guy who has it all. What will happen when they meet, and two different worlds collide?


Two Different Worlds

Hey everyone!  I'm really sorry I haven't updated the Comte and the Peasant in a while, but the semester's almost over and well, exams and papers can be a real pain in the ass.  Ah, college would be so perfect if we didn't have class *lol*.  Anyways, this was lying around in my laptop collecting dust, and so I decided to put it out there for you guys to enjoy.  As always, I'd love to know what you think!

HYD does not belong to me.   Hey, that rhymed!

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"Mom!  I told you!  I'm fine!  Yeah, everything's fine, you don't have to worry about anything!  Okay, I'll try to come home in a week.  Alright…alright I promise!  Yes…yes, I'll do that.  Okay, you take care too.  Alright, love you…mmmhmm, bye."  

Makino Tsukushi heaved a great sigh of relief as she hung up the receiver to the pay phone.  It was less than a month into the semester, and already her overbearing mother was harassing her to come home.

"So much for independence as an adult," she mumbled to herself as she made her way out of the phone booth and towards the McDonalds that was conveniently situated in the center of the student union, next to a Subway and a fake Chinese fast food restaurant called the Happy Kitchen.  

Tsukushi rubbed her bleary eyes as she thought about what she wanted to order.  Normally, she didn't go in for fast food.  It had no nutritional value and just added more weight to the ten pounds she had already gained since coming to college.  But tonight she didn't feel like cooking for herself.  Not after that horrible biochemistry exam…

"What do you want miss?" The young man behind the counter asked dully.  

"Um…a number six please.  With a diet coke."  

While the guy went off to get her order, Tsukushi fumbled in her coat pocket for some money.  Glancing over behind her shoulder, she noticed two pretty girls talking and laughing, sporting their designer handbags and flashing their three hundred dollar cell phones.

"Here you go," the young man said curtly as he plopped the greasy bag and the drink onto the counter.  "Can I help who's next?"

"Thanks a lot," Tsukushi replied sarcastically, grabbing the food and placing the money on the counter.  "Don't forget to take that."

Walking outside into the cool night air, Tsukushi made her way down the dimly lit streets back to her small apartment on campus.  She shared it with her friend Endou Makiko who was also a sophomore at Eitoku University.  The two had met while living in the dormitories their freshman year and had become fast friends, especially since they had many of the same classes together.

Makino Tsukushi was definitely not your average college student.  Especially not at _this_ particular university.  Unlike the other undergraduate students, she didn't go out much.  Tsukushi was definitely not much of a partier, and spent most of her time either studying or doing research in a laboratory.  It wasn't necessarily that she enjoyed being antisocial, but with her family's financial situation, it wasn't easy paying for her own living expenses while keeping up her grades at the same time.  Unlike most of the wealthy students that attended this prestigious university, Makino Tsukushi had been accepted based on her own intelligence and hard work.  She had maintained good grades throughout high school and scored extremely high in her college entrance exams, high enough in fact that she was awarded a full four- year scholarship from Eitoku.  Unfortunately, that only covered her tuition, and left the problem of textbooks, food, clothing, shelter, and all other living expenses up to her to take care of.  

While both her parents worked, neither her mother nor father pulled in more than 50,000 yen a month.  For a long time, it had been a question of whether or not Tsukushi would even attend college.  Afterall, with her family in such a state, it would have been more beneficial to have another source of income contributing to the family's expenses.  She could have found a secretarial job or something in sales at one of the department stores, but surprisingly, her mother had pressed her to take the scholarship and get an education.  Being as fixated on money as she was, it meant a lot to Tsukushi to have her mother's support.  

"I'm back!" Tsukushi called as she walked into her apartment and dropped her heavy backpack on the floor.  She made her way into the small living room and plopped down onto the worn couch.  

"Hey, how did the exam go?" Makiko asked cheerfully as she came out of the bedroom.

"Okay I guess," Tsukushi replied, biting into her cheeseburger and taking a sip of her coke.  "Although there were a few questions I didn't know."

 "Oh I'm sure you did fine," Makiko said, sitting down next to her and taking a french frie, "You always do fine."

"Hahaha, thanks for the vote of confidence," Tsukushi snickered.  She rubbed her eyes and gave a loud sigh.  "Man, I'm so tired…"

"Then relax, take a break," Makiko said.  She reached over and grabbed the remote control, flipping on the television.  "I figured you might be stressed after that exam, so I took the liberty of renting us a movie.  I know you haven't seen _Jubunairu_ yet, and I'm telling you, it's the best movie EVER."  

"I don't know Makiko chan…I think I should go to bed soon…" Tsukushi protested.

"Oh come on, you know what they say about all work and no play…"

"Alright, alright, just for tonight.  Afterall, I guess I deserve it."

"That's the spirit!"

Tsukushi smiled and shoved the rest of her burger in her mouth.  Leaning back she made herself comfortable and put her feet up on the coffee table.

"I'll go pop some popcorn before the movie starts," Makiko said as she got up and headed into the kitchen.  

"Thanks!" Tsukushi called after her as the previews started to play on the screen.

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            "Kami, I'm so late!" Tsukushi swore under her breath as she ran to the chemistry building.  She had already overslept her biochemistry lecture, and now she was almost half an hour late to her genetics class.  

            "Hey, watch it!" 

            "Sumimasen!" Tsukushi apologized, as she nearly ran over another student walking in front of her.  Dashing into the building, Tsukushi ran down the hall and towards the main auditorium.  

            "What the hell is all this crap on the floor?" Tsukushi cried as she slipped and nearly fell on some paper that was scattered all over the tiled hallway.  Kicking the papers aside, she reached to pull open the doors of the lecture hall, but stopped suddenly as something caught her eye.   

            "Oh my…" she gasped as she reached down and picked up one of the flyers.  Being on campus, there were always posters tacked up everywhere, advertising for shows, club activities, plays, etc, etc, so it wasn't really a big deal to see paper scattered all over the floor.  But this, this was something different, and Tsukushi could feel her cheeks growing warm as she stared at the picture in front of her.  Right there, in clear black and white, was a grainy picture of a pretty young girl…only, she had no clothes on.  

            "Who would be so mean as to do such a thing?" Tsukushi wondered as she ripped up the flyer and threw it into the nearest recycling bin.  Bending over, she quickly gathered up all the flyers that were on the floor, and shoved them into the recycling bin too.  Dusting off her hands, she headed into the lecture hall to try to get the most out of the twenty minutes left of class.

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            "Thanks for letting me borrow your notebook Naomi," Tsukushi said as she and her friend made their way outside after class.  

            "No problem," Naomi replied, glancing at her watch.  "Sorry, but I gotta get going.  Give me a call later if you want to study tonight okay?"

            "Yeah sure, see you," Tsukushi said.  Shoving the notebook into her backpack, she was about to head over to the library when she realized that she had left her textbook back in the lecture hall.  

            "I'm really getting forgetful," she mused as she headed back inside the chem building, "Maybe I should start taking ginseng or something…"

            "I can't believe they would do something like this."

            "Well, the girl got what she deserved for being a slut."

            "But still…how embarrassing…"

            Tsukushi snapped out of her thoughts as she noticed a group of girls gathered around outside the door to the auditorium.  One of them was holding a copy of the flyer she had thrown away earlier that morning.  

            "Do you know who she is?" One girl asked.

            "I don't know her name, but I know she's a freshman…"

            Tsukushi frowned as she noticed the careless, almost amused tone these girls were using.  Obviously, they were enjoying this poor girl's humiliation.  Tsukushi could feel herself getting angrier as she listened to their conversation, but bit her tongue and kept silent as she walked past them.  "It's none of your business," she told herself over and over again as she walked into the lecture hall, "so stay out of it."

            When Tsukushi came back out again, the group of girls had dispersed, but there were still two girls idling in the hallway.  

            "I guess that'll teach her to go after Doumiyouji san right Yuriko?" the taller girl remarked, crumpling up the flyer and tossing it into the trash.  

            "Oh who cares about that anymore.  Let's go get some lunch Yamano.  I'm starving!"  The other girl name Yuriko replied, "I don't want to bother thinking of her.  As far as I'm concerned, she's no longer worth talking about."

            As the two girls headed off, Tsukushi stood rigid in the doorway, her hands clenched into tight fists.  "This is why I can't stand the people here," she seethed, "Everyone's so self absorbed…so unfeeling…"

            She slammed the door angrily behind her as she made her way down the hall and towards the bathroom.  For some reason, she felt sick all of a sudden.  As she passed one of the nearby classrooms, she heard laughing and paused.  There shouldn't have been anyone here right now, not while it was lunchtime.  Curious, she peeked into the room, and caught a glimpse of three boys talking.

            "I'm sure she's seen the pictures by now," one boy was saying, "That'll teach that stupid girl a lesson she'll never forget."

            "Hahahaha, oh man, I wish I could see the look on her face!" Another guy hooted, slapping his buddy a high five.

            "I think you guys went a little too far," the third guy said, his words instantly shutting the other two boys up.  "But I guess what's done is done, so at least I won't have her hanging all over me anymore."

            "Th…That's right Doumiyouji san…ahahahaha…we were only thinking of your best interest…"

            "Doumiyouji…why does that name sound familiar?"  Tsukushi wondered as she stood by the door listening.  She didn't feel good about evesdropping in on other people's conversations, but she was sure that these guys were the ones who were responsible for all those horrible flyers.  

            "Oh my god!  That's him!  That's the guy those girls were talking about!" Tsukushi suddenly realized as she remembered where she had heard that name.  "Why that jerk!  How could he do something like this?  Somebody ought to tell him off and make him apologize for what he did!"  

            Normally, Makino Tsukushi tried hard to blend in and be ambiguous at Eitoku University, choosing to keep to herself rather than to get into conflict with other people.  However, this time, she couldn't ignore what was happening.  Some poor freshman girl, who had only been to college for less than a month, was already humiliated to the point where she couldn't show her face on campus anymore.  And it was all because of some stupid guy who didn't like the attention she was giving him.

            "What the hell do you think gives you the right to ruin somebody's life like that?!" Tsukushi demanded as she marched into the room and walked right up to the guy called Doumiyouji.  

The young man, a tall guy with thick, dark curly hair and large brown eyes, regarded her with barely concealed surprise.  "And just who are you?" he demanded coolly, his tone betraying no hint of his emotions.

"The person who's going to teach YOU a lesson," Tsukushi replied, her eyes darkening as they rose to meet his. 

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End of Chapter One

Ah, yet another alternate reality fic.  I thought it would be fun to put T & T into a college setting, and hopefully, you guys find this story to be interesting so far.  I have no idea what college life in Japan is like, since I've never experienced it before myself, so I apologize if this isn't exactly an accurate portrayal of a Japanese university.  However, I am using the American college experience as a guide, so hopefully, that's okay J.  Well, I guess that's about it.  As always, emails and reviews are greatly appreciated.  Until next time!

Email me at delphigirl.geo@yahoo.com!!!!!!!!!!  PLEASE!!!!!!!!!!  I'll love you forever!


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